


Solutions to Things that Aren't Problems (Teenage Relationship Bullshit)

by animeHrmIne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Consent issues (intoxicated make-outs), Discussions of pseudocest, F/M, Merlin I hope this makes sense outside of my head, Ron/Lavender happened in the gap between Rose and Hugo, Teenagers are dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:43:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1575650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeHrmIne/pseuds/animeHrmIne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy needs a place to crash after he fucks up something pretty badly, and he chooses his Aunt Lavender’s flat. She’s not exactly pleased, but she’ll help him out so long as he leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solutions to Things that Aren't Problems (Teenage Relationship Bullshit)

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this ‘verse came to me because my immediate reaction upon reading the Teddy/Victoire line in the Epilogue was “oh my god they’re cousins.” And then I remembered that they weren’t, but the bunnies were already there.

_‘I’m fucked’_ , Teddy Lupin thought, groaning. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw stars, then flopped his hands over his head onto the arm of the couch. The purplish fabric scraped against his skin, and what felt like a spring dug into his lower back, but he was far too busy wallowing in his own self-pity to care. ‘ _I’m completely and utterly fucked._ ’ 

It had gotten dark since he’d arrived at Lavender’s flat, but he couldn’t be arsed to get up and walk all the way to the switch to turn the lights on. Or wave his wand and turn the lights on. Or mentally mutter a spell and turn the lights on. Not that he’d quite gotten the hang of silent spellwork yet anyway. He still had to _actually_ mutter the incantation, probably looking like even more of a dunce than if he’d just say it out loud. What a pathetic loser, Teddy Lupin. His life was a joke.

The last time he’d been in that room was a handful of years before, when his Uncle Ron was dating Lavender. The flat was actually a Muggle apartment, with a Muggle landlord and electricity and everything. After the Second Blood Wars and a not-so-pleasant meeting with a deranged werewolf, Lavender had retreated from the Wizarding world. She was a pureblood, but out of all of Teddy’s pseudo-relatives, she was probably the most in touch with the Muggle world. When Ron had been living there, Teddy would come by any time he could, mostly for the free wifi, but also because Lavender was _cool_ . . . and didn’t have children, unlike everyone else he knew, so he didn’t have to babysit, or worry about ruining the minds of impressionable young wixen with the horrors of the internet.

He was just thinking about how he was too upset to even go online when he heard the door to the flat open from over the back of the couch. The faint click of a switch and the yellow glow that flooded through his eyelids told him that _someone_ had finally turned the lights on. He scrunched up his nose and took a whiff of the air, not even caring that he looked like a dog. Something that smelled of sharp, artificial roses hit his nose, and he hazarded a guess as to the wearer of the perfume. “Heya, Auntie Lav.”

There was a muffled crash, and a breathless “Holy shit!” came from over the back of the couch, followed by an annoyed, “You just scared the life out of me, Teddy.” He grinned a bit, bad mood receding for the moment, as Lavender picked up whatever she had dropped. He opened his eyes and twisted his body around to glance over the arm of the uncomfortable couch, tracking Lavender’s movements as she walked around to the tiny kitchen area, put away her things, and filled the kettle with water. Setting the silver appliance down and turning it on, she leaned back against the counter and looked at Teddy. “Why are you here, Lupin?" 

“Oh, come on, Auntie Lavender,” he said, pulling his legs up until he was seated. “I sent you a text. I know you saw the text. You replied to the text.” He grinned at her cheekily, pushing the memories of what had driven him to her flat to the back of his mind. “I need a place to crash.”

“And _burn,_ ” she muttered, not exactly quietly. She eyed him, crossing her arms. “Yeah, I got that much from the bloody message. But why here, and not at any of your actual homes? I’m not dating Ron anymore.” She shook her head and turned around to get two mugs down from the cabinet above the counter. “So why here, kid? What did you _do?_ ” She looked over her shoulder at him. “And I’m not your aunt.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Teddy replied, raising his hand to run it through his dark gold hair and nearly twisting himself off the sofa. Lavender raised one marred eyebrow at him, the scar that sliced through it like a pale arrow pointing to her eyes – eyes that were the same color as Teddy’s, and the same color as . . . _hers._ “Okay, so I totally did a thing. A really not good thing.” Lavender’s brown eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Teddy’s eyes widened too, and he back-tracked a bit. “Jeez, Lav, I didn’t kill a guy or anything. I just fucked up a bit and I need a place to hide.” He winced. “Crash. I need a place to _crash_.”

Lavender took a deep breath. “Teddy, you know how it was when I was your age. Killing someone might not have even qualified as a quote ‘not good thing’.” Her hand went up absently to stroke one of the white marks on her neck. Suddenly, a loud beeping rang through the apartment and she jumped, before turning around to take the kettle off its stand. She looked over her shoulder at Teddy and opened her mouth to say something, but instead made a face and pulled a wayward strand of long, brown hair off of her tongue. “Blegh. Tea?”

Teddy’s hair started to tickle at his shoulders, and he could feel his skin tightening across his nose, his upper lip, his brow. He caught himself and shook his head. His skin cleared of scars and was replaced once again by a smattering of gold freckles across a strong nose, and his hair returned to its original short, intentionally-unintentionally messy state. He grimaced, just as Lavender had done, and then mentally kicked himself for that as well. He’d developed a habit of mirroring people when he was a baby. It didn’t bother his family anymore; they were used to having to distinguish him from their own children based on his lupine eyes (or, in Bill and Fleur’s case, by his lack of Veela traits). It freaked the hell out of people at school, though, and he’d been trying to make himself stop for years.

Lavender was still waiting for an answer, the slight grin on her face letting him know he’d been caught copying her. _Damn._ “Er, what kinds of tea you got?”

“All kinds. _All_ the kinds.”

Teddy wrinkled his nose at her. “No, don’t do that. Please.” He contemplated tea choices momentarily, before adding, “Herbal tea of some sort, don’t care, you pick.”

“Don’t do what?” she asked, rummaging through a mess of containers on her counter.

“Try and talk like you’re my age. You’re like 35. And a witch.” He shook his head in disgust. “And you didn’t even get the meme right the first time. _All the kinds_.”

“Hey, I’ve been on the internet since you were like ten.” Her hair got into her mouth again and she groaned and magicked it up into a ponytail. “I’m probably on it more than you, considering I don’t live like 9 months of the year in that connectionless castle.” She levitated the cups over the low table in front of the couch and sat down next to him. “No more deflecting. Why are you here, Teddy?” 

He flopped his whole body against the back of the couch and moaned. “Do I _have_ to tell, Auntie Lavender?”

“Nope.” He opened one eye to look at her as she casually sipper her tea. “I’m not your aunt, I’m not your mum, and I don’t really care to play babysitter.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “But my girlfriend is going to be here in an hour, and I figure helping you out is nicer than shoving you into a fire to I-don’t-care-where.” She took another drink of tea and waited, looking patiently at him.

Teddy let his head loll forward on his neck and began to tell her the story.

_So you know how he’d been in France for the summer and stuff? No, yeah, he and Vicky had been staying in Paris with Gabrielle, you know, Aunt Fleur’s little sister or whatever. Yeah, yeah, she’s like a model over there or, yeah, totally unfair advantage with her supernatural hotness. And she’s like thirty but she’s still well into the party scene, it’s almost sad but whatever. So he and Victoire had gone with her to this club, Le something, way cooler than BritWiz clubs, seriously, super hot people everywhere, awesome music, it was killer. Anyway. He’d started the night out looking like himself, but by the time he and V were on shot five, yes, she’s sixteen, come on, he’s heard stories about his Aunt L_ —Ow _. So by like shot number five he was mirroring pretty bad, he had no clue what he looked like, he thought he had blue hair at one point, and that was before they’d taken the pills. No, he didn’t know what they were, yes he did know that was stupid, yes he was supposed to protect her, it was her idea in the first place, not an excuse. Not the point. Because then he was drunk, and high on something, and the room was moving around him and he could have looked like anyone. And there was Vicky, perfect fucking Victoire with her perfect fucking hair, like a Veela’s but_ golden _, she was fucking_ golden _, she’s always golden, and her freckles were like flecks of sunlight and her eyes were just like his, and he has no idea if she knew who he was, and she started dancing on him, yes, on and then they were kissing and her boobs were excellent and there was this incredibly convenient wall –_

“Whoa, whoa, no, stop, ew.” Lavender slapped a hand over Teddy’s mouth, cutting him off. “I can’t hear this, you’re a child.” She fake-shuddered, scrunching up her nose in distaste before looking sternly at him. “No sex talk from children.”

“Lavvvv, I’m _seventeen_.” Shit. That was a whine, not a mature statement of fact. He’d fucked up; abort mission, _abort mission_. He squeezed his eyes closed.

“I’m thirty-five, and you’re a child.” She shuddered again, put her empty cup of tea on the table next to his half-full cup, then turned to face him. “So you hooked up with Victoire. Weird, I guess, but not exactly an apparate-out-of-the-country-and-hide-at-your-uncle’s-ex-girlfriend’s-place kind of thing.”

“I made out with my COUSIN.”

Lavender just looked at him, head tilted and mouth slightly open in confusion. “You . . . do know she’s not actually your cousin, right?”

Teddy dropped his face into his hands and mumbled “I know” through his palms, then cocked his face up to look at Lavender. “But I grew up with her, Lav. We took baths together. I called her mother “Mummy” for the first five years of my life. I _live with her_. I mean,” he paused and gripped his face in frustration. “I also live with Harry and Ginny, and I share a room with Freddy when I’m at his place, and sometimes I stay with Ron and ‘Mione – sorry.” She rolled her eyes, waving him on. “But when Gran Andy died and my ‘godfather’ was still a kid, Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur took me in and raised me.” He hung his head. “And I got their sixteen-year-old daughter high and made out with her in a nightclub in Paris and then ran away.”

“Well when you put it like that, it sounds bad,” Lavender said, patting him on the shoulder grinning at him until he eventually crooked a small smile back at her. “Okay, this is not the mature, adult thing to say, but like I said, I’m not your mum, I’m not your aunt, I just want you out of my flat before Angie gets here.” Their grins widened. “So, shit question: did she even know it was you she kissed?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, lolling his head onto the back of the sofa. “Yeah, she did. I mean, the eyes are kind of a give-away if you know what you’re looking for, as you know,” he said, gesturing at the evidence of his lupine inheritance. Lavender nodded. “And I mean, there could have been other wolfy people there, but.” Teddy closed his eyes dreamily, nearly sighing. “When we kissed, it was like we were the only people in the room, and it was the first time I’ve felt like _myself_ in my whole life. No mirroring, no ‘you look just like your parents,’ just me . . . with my tongue down my cousin’s throat, snogging her against a wall until someone spilled a drink on us.”

“Ew. Okay, yeah, that’s a little fucked up.” She patted him on the shoulder again. “You’ve got it bad, love. How’re you gonna fix it?” Teddy looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes. She immediately stood up, knocking into the coffee table and taking a step away from the teenager in front of her, hands between her and him like a shield. “Oh, fuck no. This is not my problem. Not your mum. Not your aunt. Not my responsibility.”

Teddy began to reply, but he was cut off by a loud ‘pop,’ followed by a low voice saying, “Of COURSE you’re _here_.” Freddy Weasley threw his hands up in the air. “Where else would you be? Except for maybe, I don’t know, Paris fucking FRANCE?”

The dark skinned boy stood in the center of the flat, wearing a murderous expression and an oddly damp red shirt. “You know what I spent _my_ day doing, arsehole?” he yelled at Teddy. He then turned to look at Lavender, saying calmly and pleasantly, “Hello, Lavender, nice to see you, flat looks lovely,” before turning back to Teddy and resuming his tirade. “ _I’ve_ been comforting my _sobbing_ cousin because apparently _some bloke_ ,” Teddy winced at the pointed look sent his way, “took her home after she kissed him, and then left a bloody _note_ that said ‘Sorry, gotta go, bye’.”

Lavender mouthed the words ‘sorry, gotta go, bye’ back to herself before crossing her arms and raising her brows at Teddy in disproval. Teddy buried his face in the back of the couch and mumbled something incomprehensible. Freddy just rolled his eyes at his friend’s behavior. “Seriously, mate? You two _finally_ make out and all you’ve got is ‘Sorry, gotta go, bye’? In a _note_?”

Teddy looked up from the couch, face darkening from blushing and from mirroring Freddy’s skin. “Is she okay? Not, I mean,” he stuttered when Freddy stepped forward and clenched his fists. “I know she’s _upset_ , I am the most horrible person in the world, but. She’s not like, hurt, right?”

“No, she’s not _hurt_ , she’s fucking _broken_ , y-”

A buzzer rang, and Lavender waved her wand to shut it off, looking at the clock and then at the two boys in front of her. “That’ll be the muggle girlfriend. Time’s up, boys. Sort your shit out, continue acting like a complete arse, fall down a hole. I don’t care which. You just need to leave.”

Teddy sighed, and for the first time in literally hours he stood up from the couch he had been wallowing on, hands gripping his neck as he stretched. He started to ask Freddy a question, stopped, and then seemed to _push_ the words out with his hands as they shoved out to grip the arm of the couch. “Where is she?”

“I left her with Roxxie and Dom,” Freddy said, gesturing at Teddy to hurry up, “who are under strict orders to not tell anyone that Victoire is in England instead of _fucking Fran-_ ” his voice cut out, mouth still moving to complete the sentence until he realized what was happening. He jumped, mouth open in a silent yelp, before grabbing his throat and glaring at Lavender.

Lavender had her wand out and her arms crossed, foot tapping. “No more teenage relationship bullshit in this flat. Only adult relationship bullshit.” There was a knock on the door. “Out, before I hex you and vanish what remains.” She waved the wand and snarled, the scars on her face making her look truly menacing.

Teddy quickly hopped forward, grabbed Freddy’s hand, closed his eyes, and _twisted_ , Apparating them out of the room with a _pop_. When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in a light-filled hallway in front of a white door with the word “Dominique” painted on it in a swirling gold and blue script. His hand gripped Freddy’s tighter, and he looked over at his best friend and gulped. Freddy rolled his eyes and shoved at Teddy’s shoulder, then pulled out his wand to reverse the spell Lavender had cast.

Teddy took a deep breath. This was it. He could do this. He could talk to Victoire, and apologize, and maybe have a major freak out _with_ her instead of away from her. He could do this. He could. He – Freddy shoved at his shoulder again before throwing his hands in the air and stalking off. Teddy took another deep breath, then raised his hand to knock on the door.

**Author's Note:**

> This ‘verse also came about because the Epilogue was too picture-perfect, but also had a lot of potential for being really fucked up. All of these people are children of war. I doubt that everything magically turned happy after the Battle of Hogwarts ended. I mean, George Weasley married his dead brother's girlfriend and then named his son after said dead brother. That alone is potential for seriously fucked up angst. ... Plus I mean these kids are part of the generation that brought us things like Skins and Misfits.
> 
> I wrote this fic for my Fanfiction Creative Writing class (yes it exists and it's amazing). If I can manage to write more fic for not-a-class, this ‘verse would include a bunch of other stories, like Victoire and Dominique’s sociopathic genderless younger sibling Louis, or Lysander Scamander who protects his autistic twin brother Lorcan even when they’re in different Houses, or Lucy Weasley and her older, magicless sister Molly who have the utmost pleasure of being brought up in a mixed-magic and mixed-ethnic household. Or literally everyone else. I think the only ones who aren’t all that bad off are Lily Luna and Hugo.


End file.
